<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>confession dial (home is where the hearts are) by space_boye</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267312">confession dial (home is where the hearts are)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_boye/pseuds/space_boye'>space_boye</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who, Doctor Who &amp; Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Confession Dial (Doctor Who), Confessions, Illusions, Love Confessions, M/M, Mind Games, Surreal, Trapped, Vignette, its for the Vibe and nothing else, line breaks galore, parenthetical asides, so many of them</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:34:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>677</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25267312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_boye/pseuds/space_boye</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I... I had hope."</i><br/>(He spat out the last word, for it left a bitter taste on his tongue.) </p><p> </p><p>Based on a prompt given to me by Valc0's thoschei prompt generator on tumblr: First Doctor, Delgado!Master, trapped in a confession dial, with the line "I don't understand half of what you stand for, and yet I still love you. Does that make me a fool?"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor/The Master (Delgado), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Third Doctor/The Master (Delgado)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>confession dial (home is where the hearts are)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valc0/gifts">Valc0</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>YES there's more context for this no i will not write it, basically, AU where three and delgado do actually end up leaving earth and travelling together during the axons ep, and eventually the High Council of Gallifrey catches up to them because 1) The Master and 2) The Doctor is supposed to be exiled to earth<br/>The Doctor is taken to face the High Council, for they know he is a coward and will not resort to violence<br/>The Master is trapped inside his own confession dial, forced to confront all the things he never said</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>(The figure in front of the Master changed faces with every phrase. It spoke of moral high ground and kindness. It spoke the same ideas that the Master had heard from the Doctor on so many other occasions.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I don't understand half of what you stand for, and yet I still love you. Does that make me a fool?" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The figure looked like the Doctor. It was not the Doctor.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You were already a fool," spoke the Doctor’s first face.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"You still are," </span>
  </em>
  <span>spoke his second.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You thought 'we' were beyond salvation." his third sneered.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"So wrong."</span>
</p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span> ("So wrong,")</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(Spoke no one at all.)</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>"I... I had </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope</span>
  </em>
  <span>." </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He spat out the last word, for it left a bitter taste on his tongue.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You didn't tell him" </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(His fourth, the Master somehow knew. He recognized him, although he couldn’t remember if they’d met.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"You didn't tell </span>
  <b>me</b>
  <span>."</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(The third one again. The one he knew best.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"He hated you."</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"A bitter ex."</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(His fifth. The future, but the present, now. Time flows differently here.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No! Stop that! I will not succumb to your lies and mind games!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He clutched his head, but then he found his hands still at his sides, his position unchanged. He had not moved.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"This is your own prison,"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>"You made the cell,"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The only trap you cannot escape,"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"The only fate you cannot outrun."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The Master was never good at running, anyway)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"You were a hypocrite to call him a coward."</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No! No, stop! Stop it!"</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>                    "Admit it,"</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"Admit it,"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span>("Admit it")</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <em>"a d m i t    i t"</em>
  </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"That I'm a coward? Fine! Yes! I am a coward! Now get out of my head!"</span>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>"that's not it,"</span>
</p><p>
  
  <em>
    <span>"you know it's not,"</span>
  </em>
</p><p><br/>
<br/>
<br/>
</p><p>
  <span>"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(He shouted, he whispered, he never spoke.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"What do you want from me?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>   "What do you want from me?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>         "What do you want?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>                         "What do you want?"</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>                                   ("What?")</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(The figure shifted with every phrase repeated, taking the faces of the Doctor, counting backwards in their lives until it really ought to have stopped, but did not. The Master didn’t recognize some of their faces. Why didn’t he recognize them?)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Please... be quiet, please..."</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>(He pleaded.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <em>(("W h a t   d o    y o u    w a n t ?"))</em>
  </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The figure became significantly shorter, yet he was still at the same eye level, although maybe the Master had shrunk as well.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>("what have you neglected to say?")</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(A boy with freckles and messy, blonde hair spoke now. He was wearing Academy red.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Thete... the Doctor! I have to get to the Doctor!"</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(His memories are flooding back now. He hadn’t noticed they were gone. How could he have ever forgotten?)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>
    <em>("w h y ?")</em>
  </b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"because YOU are a SHODDY REPLICA,"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>("w h y ?")</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"BECAUSE I STILL LOVE HIM." </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>("why?")</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"BECAUSE I-"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(He lunged forward, lifting his captor by the shirt. An unsettling grin curled across their unperceivable face, no longer holding any one form.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>-LOVE-</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The face shifted back to the fluffy, white haired doctor, </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>doctor. It did not stop grinning. The grin was wider now. It should not have been able to stretch that wide.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"-THE </span>
  <b>
    <em>DOCTOR</em>
  </b>
  <span>."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(The Master tore his captor in half like a piece of tissue paper, and a veil lifted, and he was not tearing a person, but a curtain, or maybe it wasn't a curtain, and instead it was a wall, and then a door, and the Master stepped out onto red grass under a red sky, and suddenly he knew how the ancient myths must have felt when this soil was newly stained.) </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“-and I </span>
  <em>
    <span>always </span>
  </em>
  <span>will.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Such a funny word, always. He spoke this to himself, to the wind and the ground around him.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(He would visit home, as one does when they happen to be in the area.)</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>(He would not visit the House of Oakdown. That was not his home. The Master isn’t sure if it ever was.)</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
  <span>(He looked down at his hands. There was no blood on them, but there soon would be.)</span>
  <span></span><br/>
<br/>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>